Question about clean kill?

[Kedreeva]

I am currently at a point where I will need to get rid of one of my polish roosters. I am currently looking for a new home for him, but if I can't find him one soon he's going to be heading for the stewpot. HOWEVER, he has a really beautiful pelt of feathers, and I would like to be able to skin him before cleaning the meat, which means I have to kill him in a 'clean' fashion that won't damage the feathers but will also leave the meat ok. In order to skin him, he will have to be frozen shortly after death. I don't want to just stick him in the freezer, as that is a much slower and potentially painful death compared to neck wringing and while he has to die, there's zero excuse for it being drawn out. So my question to anyone who has possibly done this before-

Is there a reason wringing the neck and freezing with blood intact would make the meat taste bad?

If so, is there another kill method that will leave the feathers intact and clean as well as the meat ok to eat?

 

[Rod W]

When I decided to make videos of my pluckers, I bought some ducks and needed to mercifully put them to sleep. The guy that raised the ducks explained how they do it for taxidermy purposes. He gave me a syringe and hypodermic needle, instucted me to inject 1cc of isopropyl alcohol into the brain of the ducks. When done right, they just went to sleep. He stated the soft entry place to the brain is a small depression, just above the base of the skull on the back side. I will say that this worked well on most ducks but on a few and most pheasants not so well. If you try this method, I would suggest restraining your Roo in a kill cone and gently pull his head down ward. Practice on another bird first? Not for the squeamish!!

 

[Kedreeva]

Interesting! I'm not squeamish, so that sounds like a fairly easy way to do it, but the real question is will the meat be ok if the blood is left in when I freeze it? I've pelted birds before but never wanted to keep the meat to eat, so I never bothered asking. The birds we pelt get frozen before doing so, but I don't recall anyone ever draining the blood. But again... we didn't eat them.

If the blood doesn't hurt the meat in any way, I will just wring his neck and be done with it. I know how to do that easy enough.

 

[Attack Chicken]

With the pheasant that I harvested (had holes from the pellets) I just skinned the bird and put the pelt in the fridge and gutted out the rest of the body ,clean and washed it. I never freezed the whole bird because I wanted the meat to eat and the pelt to be saved so I can mount it.

 

[Kedreeva]

I see! I have not ever had a fresh bird to skin, actually. The taxidermy class only had frozen specimens. I guess I didn't even consider skinning it fresh!

 

[Attack Chicken]

Yup believe me it is easier to skin fresh kills LOL I harvested this bird towards the end of the day which he wasn't riggered but others I've gotten in the morning they were stiff as a board when skinning them. I just cut about 2 inches up the belly from the vent and up to about midneck and it always seemed to work for me.

It may be my odd nature but that would be kinda cool to see a mounted polish rooster as long as he wasn't my bird LOL

 

[Kedreeva]

hahaha, well we aren't going to be mounting him, I am keeping the pelt to make fly fishing lures from the feathers. I don't mind having him gone, he just cannot help himself when it comes to beating our other roo bloody.... and I love my blue rooster, so the buff one has to go away one way or another. He still has a few days to see if anyone wants to give him a home, but if no one does, then he gets to meet the stewpot and catch me some fish.

If you want him to mount, you're not too far away and I'd be happy to meet you. He's got a GORGEOUS pelt.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=386725